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Why then so few Newtons?

I’ve been reading some books on Quantum Theory and it discusses at one point the immense distance between all the important figures of Classical Theory. The last, or at least the last that I recall, was Isaac Newton.

It is often said that there is no harm in various alternatives to education or the scientific theory, but I wonder why it took so very long for an Isaac Newton to arise? What of the millions of people who came before him? How did every single one of them not rise to historical glory? Was this man really that special? Or was there something more popular eating up the time and mental faculties of all the other people?

Newton died in 1727, what of the 180 or so years after him before the Quantum theory really started picking up. I realize that technology was an inhibiting factor, but why did it take so long to evolve? What has changed between then and now that has allowed us the luxury of experiencing exponential technological growth.

Do we call them Newtons because they are genius?

My guess with the modern era is the rise of globalization and then the internet. Technology saw a huge boon during the World Wars, entire nations were vying to eliminate one another from history as the efficiency of mass murder grew ever better. Germany brought about the Rocket, and the Cold War would, more or less, perfect this enough to send people into space.

After this we saw the internet begin to spread and a new aggregate took hold, the world population. Admittedly this is a big exaggerative as not everyone has the internet, but scholars more or less do. So now you’ve connected the minds of all the worlds scholars and it provides incredibly potent growth.

But what of before this? What was hindering information, stunting progress, and killing the advance of human kind? I have my theories of course, but I would much rather ask the reader to think of their own. Was it simply the natural course of humanity? Or was it something more malleable? If so, do we still suffer from these hindrances today and could we overcome them?

How can there be so few geniuses in human history that their names would become synonymous with intelligence? So many lives began and ended and their thoughts were lost to history. I find this exceedingly strange.

It certainly wasn’t because he had tons of free time, I’ve seen people with that much hair and the prep in the morning is the thing of nightmares.